


Bystander

by starcrossedgirl



Category: Highlander: The Series, Holby City
Genre: Crossover, Dan Clifford is Methos Challenge, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcrossedgirl/pseuds/starcrossedgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching people had always been something Maria enjoyed and, if she thought about it, she really did it rather well at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bystander

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in 2005; caveat lector!
> 
> As usual, I'm a bit late to the party, but this is for the _Dan Clifford is Methos_ challenge over at holbycitylounge, and in fact heavily inspired by tes-fic's excellent entry. Huge thanks go to chinawolf, kazzik (my official style guru), lferion and shadadukal for betaing. ♥

Watching people had always been something Maria enjoyed and, if she thought about it, she really did it rather well at that. She had never been one to spread gossip, though she was usually keen to hear it; she liked learning things, knowing things. In fact, the only reason she hadn't gone for medicine rather than nursing was that she was just too damn scatterbrained at times. Learning simple, hard facts had never been a task that came easily to her. Observing, however, did. After all, most people were quick to dismiss the unassuming, kind girl and that suited her quite well. Being the one under observation had always made her uncomfortable; she preferred to leave the limelight to those who did well in it and faded into the background, watching them.

She watched Maddy get reamed out for coming in hung-over, watched relationships begin and break at patients' bedsides, watched people die every now and then (and that really didn't get easier, no matter what they said). She watched Jac fight her way to the top with no regard for anybody else's feelings and she watched Clifford's jilted fiancée stage a scene that was better than most of the plays her parents had ever dragged her to.

Now Clifford was something worth watching and, much as she hated to admit it, he fascinated her far more than was warranted. He was the archetypal surgeon, of course, the kind the older nurses warned you about: smug bastard, king of his domain, no mistakes allowed. Then again, Clifford was rather... dishy. (And boy, didn't he know it!) His arrogance should have been off-putting, his sexist, innuendo-laden comments offensive, but disturbingly it all only served to make him more attractive.

Not that she ever stood a chance of arousing his dubious attentions. She was pretty enough, but too shy and awkward for a man like him; too much effort for a quick night of fun, too plain to be worth chasing. Which was probably good, all things considered; if he actually ever made a genuine pass at her, she'd probably faint from shock and wake up to him laughing at her, and that she could definitely do without.

So if she went back home sometimes and thought of his hands a bit too much, of those long fingers that moved with a precision and grace that did not remind her of scalpels and surgery at all, if she thought of the way his eyes crinkled when he was amused, if she wondered what it would feel like to have all that intensity and arrogance on top of her, moving with a confidence born of true experience, then that was really noone's business but her own. Of course it didn't stop her from observing Clifford and Maddy from time to time, enjoying the search for hints of something more than friendship between the two.

Given this propensity for watching, she shouldn't have been surprised to find herself doing it yet again, although it was quite unintentional at first. She'd nipped out for a brief breath of fresh air just to get away from the madness for a minute. You got used to all sorts of strange things at Holby City Hospital, but a man with a _sword_ -inflicted stab wound that was pronounced fatal pretty much on arrival had been a bit of a surprise. His dark-haired Scottish friend (and she still wasn't sure that they _were_ friends) and his determined insistence that the body be brought to the morgue _now please, couldn't they please hurry up?_ had been downright weird. Seeing a man who was, to all intents and purposes, dead jump from the crash trolley and run out the door at breakneck speed, had made her wonder if she'd accidentally ingested someone's medicine, but the look on Connie's face had mirrored her own disbelief. After that, even the explosion that had wrecked the basement and made the hospital rely on its emergency generators for the time being barely registered.

A breath of fresh night air had been all she wanted as she retreated to the tree near the half open gazebo, but what she got instead was Daniel Clifford striding along quickly and angrily, followed a few steps by the _friend_ from earlier, who looked a little contrite. Before she knew it, Clifford had grabbed the man by his shirt (whoah, she'd never seen him _violent_ before!) and slammed him against the flimsy wall of the gazebo, which rattled shakily.

"What the hell did you think you were doing there?"

His voice was loud enough to easily carry across to her, but she crept a bit closer anyway, fascinated. Clifford's outrage was clear in his face, his nostrils flaring slightly in indignation. She'd definitely never seen him this out of control before. The other man shrugged a little under his grasp.

"I didn't exactly plan this either, you know? It all happened so incredibly quickly and just too damn close to here. What would you have me do, kill the ambulance crew before we arrived?"

"Knock them out if you must." Clifford's voice rose again on the next words. "Anything to avoid bringing this to my hospital of all places!"

" _Your_ hospital? You own it then?" There was a hint of teasing in the deep voice now.

"The bloody NHS owns it, you irrepressible, honourable," he made that one sound like a curse, "Boy Scout!"

Boy Scout? Huh. She'd have thought Clifford could do better than that, to be honest.

Maybe his heart wasn't really in it though. His grip on the other man's shirt had relaxed somewhat, perhaps in response to the lips that curved upward so slightly she could only just make it out in the relative darkness.

"Sorry." A pause that she used to shift a bit so her angle was better. "I've missed you." This time she could have seen the smile in any light, it positively lit up the man's face. Clifford's hands dropped to his sides and he tilted his head to the ground and away (from her as well, thank God!), tension in his shoulders betraying the fact that he really wanted to keep on raging. Then a word, whispered close to his ear, inaudible to her and that tension just seemed to melt out of him. He shook his head and when he looked up he was frowning, but the next words were said with a fondness that he rarely ever used within earshot of her.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with you?"

A chuckle. "I can think of a few things. You're impossible to track down for someone with such a public profession, you know? You've got to let me in on your tricks sometime."

Clifford snorted. "Like you'd ever use them anyway. And why on earth would you look me up anyway? Some impending disaster and moral conflict I should know about?"

The need to know what they could possibly be talking about itched away at her.

"No. Just been thinking about some things you said a while ago. And hey, maybe those tricks could turn out to be quite useful after all."

Another facial expression she'd never seen on that face before, but she categorised it quickly. Stunned. They were still standing as close together as that initial shove had positioned them, but suddenly they were even closer and before her brain had the chance to process what was happening the man had grabbed Clifford by his silk tie and was kissing him. Kissing him rather enthusiastically at that.

Her mouth dropped open. No way.

If there was one thing about Daniel Clifford that she was sure of, it was that he was rampantly heterosexual. He liked women, and he made that fact very plain, perhaps a bit too plain at times. Any minute now he would push the other man away and laugh at him, or maybe get annoyed at the presumption, but there was no way he was going to allow this to continue.

But he did. She watched, stunned herself now, as Clifford opened up to the kiss, sank into it completely, then took it over, pushing the other man against the wall behind him again, more gently but no less forcefully this time, practically consuming him. It went on for a long while, wet sounds and all, muffled gasps and bodies melding against each other until they finally broke for air.

It was really rather hot.

There were some more inaudible whispers from the other man, but Clifford shut him up most effectively by placing a hand over his mouth. His other hand wandered downward, between them, unclasping a belt as she strained to hear him hiss: "No Duncan. Here. Now."

The words were interspersed with little gasps. She knew she should really, really leave, because honestly, there was watching and then there was _watching_ , but her legs felt like jelly, her pulse faster than it should be, and there was no way she could walk away from this, no matter how fiercely it made her blush.

She couldn't make out much, but the way their bodies were straining against each other and the awkward tangle of arms between them were fairly obvious. They were kissing again, less focused, sloppily and wet, stifled moans released into each other's mouths that were only interrupted for a heavy breath here and there before they melted back into the embrace. Then the other man - Duncan - tilted Clifford's head to bury his face in his neck, sucking sharply. Clifford arched into the contact, offering up his neck with a choked sound, and froze. She was vaguely aware of the shudders running through his body, but couldn't keep her eyes from his face which was startlingly open despite his tightly closed eyes. He looked completely abandoned, utterly lost in his pleasure and simply... beautiful. If he always looked like that during orgasm it was no wonder that women were queuing at his bedroom door. It made _her_ throb, and she wasn't even involved in the action.

She felt a bit dazed as she watched them come down from the high together, shivering against each other. The moments when they just stood there, resting their heads against each other's shoulders, helped to calm her frantically beating heart down somewhat. But then they started touching again - with none of that desperate urgency now, slow, gentle touches and kisses not meant to arouse, and somehow that felt far more intimate than anything that had come before.

When she caught a brief glimpse of Clifford's face, the utter joy of his smile was like a quick sharp jab in the stomach, a reminder that she wasn't supposed to be here because this was theirs and she had no part in it.

She snuck away as quietly as possible and spent half an hour in the toilets before she was certain she had her frantic blushing under control and wouldn't appear suspiciously distracted from her work.

\-----

It didn't really surprise her when Clifford wasn't there the next day, gone without a word of goodbye. Maddy was obviously heartbroken, although she did her best not to show it and for a moment Maria was tempted to tell her what she'd seen. On reflection though, it would probably only distress her further, and it felt invasive enough having witnessed what she had. Besides, she just knew that _he_ wouldn't approve, and she had the oddest feeling that this wasn't the last she would see of Daniel Clifford.

For now, she was content simply watching the people around her.


End file.
